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Wednesday, 30 December 2009

If, after four days of Christmas over-indulgence, you feel you just want to get away from it all then here is the ideal solution. Book yourselves into a secluded monastery and receive a bit of divine sustenance. It apparently works for the good people of Poland as you will see from reading this report from the BT Yahoo news service AFP. Sounds good to me - even the cup of tea.

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Poles who do not feel like a New Year's Eve of hard partying have jumped at the chance to spend their holiday in the contemplative calm of a Benedictine monastery, organisers said Monday."The monastery hosted 60 people last year. This year, we had hundreds of calls and all 89 places were booked by the start of December," Jadwiga Pribyl, of Poland's Benedictine Cultural Institute, told AFP.For 80 zloty (19 euros, 28 dollars) a day, the New Year's guests sleep in the monastic cells of the Roman Catholic Tyniec abbey (pictured above), perched on a cliff above the Vistula River in southern Poland.Over the three-day retreat, they get the same simple meals as the monks, and receive divine sustenance from regular religious services and periods of meditation.At midnight on December 31, Pribyl said, "there won't be any crazy stuff, or fireworks, but just a mass followed by a cup of tea".More than 90 percent of Poland's 38 million inhabitants are practising Catholics.

Today's brainteaser is based on general knowledge 'Trivia' and as usual there are ten questions to be answered. A good opportunity to get the brain cells working again after the Christmas recess.01 What is given an octane number?02 Which small animal is trained to hunt rats and rabbits?03 In which country is the Schilling the unit of currency?04 What is a yak?05 What was telstar?06 What is a zither?07 Where would you go to find Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan?08 What is neoprene?09 Where are the Elgin Marbles?10 What metal is used to make the filaments of electric light bulbs?Good luck with the above questions. Answers in tomorrow's Journal.